Flipside
by silvenswish
Summary: So, you wake up in the middle of the woods. You look for a town, right? Wrong. They find you first, and it isn't pleasant. (into-canon, SI. I promise you that I can write, and avoid cliches.)
1. Chapter 1

_Trees._

No, not trees. I was at the mall with one of my aunts, at the top of an escalator.

Trees?

But I remembered a hard shove to the middle of my back, and tumbling—a sharp, white-hot pain—

I open my eyes and find that what my ears and nose have been telling me is indeed correct: I am in a forest.

The sun is sparkling though the branches above me. Birds are whistling short staccato songs to each other. I can hear the gentle gurgling of a stream.

Nope, nothing suspicious here.

_What the. . . ._

And cue the suspicion.

I sit upright gingerly, wary of that sudden, horrible pain. I look extremely out-of-place, I realize. The forest is warm and natural, directly in contrast to the teenager wearing a thick coat and still holding three plastic shopping bags. I put the bags down and rub the back of my neck carefully.

We'd gone to my mom's sister's house for Thanksgiving. Auntie Beth had dragged me to the mall for some "bonding time," which usually involved her trying to wear out her paycheck on me, her only niece. I would chivalrously deflect the intent and persuade her to buy stuff for my brothers, instead, and that was where I had found myself a few minutes ago: laden with bags and stepping onto the "down" escalator.

Then someone had bumped into me and I'd rolled down the steps and had hit the back of my neck hard enough to . . . hmm.

I rub my neck again, not noticing any lumps, and feel a headache coming on. Hmm.

Dead? Maybe.

Is this heaven? Clearly not.

Coma and dreaming? Possibly.

So where am I?

I stand up, stretch, brush a leaf out of my snarled hair, and look around. Oak trees. Stream. "Hello?" I call, not really expecting an answer. "Hello!" I shout again, before wincing at my headache and deciding that I'm probably on my own.

Or hallucinating.

There's a penny in the left pocket of my jeans. I'd found it in the parking lot, winking up at me in all its alluring copper glory. My right pocket has one of my brothers' old pocketknives in it. Good. If I can't find civilization soon, I'm going to need it. Not to mention my lack of cash.

The first bag has six rolls of blue and red wrapping paper that say "Happy Birthday" and "Merry Christmas," respectively. There are a few packets of tissue paper shoved in the bottom like afterthoughts.

The second bag has a ping pong paddle, two six-packs of balls and pink fuzzy socks that were supposed to be a gag gift.

Bag number three is full of small things: ponytail holders, crepe paper, bubblegum, a pack of batteries, a teddy bear.

Well, that's better than I could have hoped for, after tumbling merrily down the steps. Although the year's stash of candy and the towels would have been nice.

So. Alone in a forest. Water? Check. Way to distill the water? Rats.

I walk over to the small stream and scoop out a handful. It looks clear enough. There's a little algae growing between the rocks, but it's bright green and there isn't any silt and I've always been a trusting person anyway.

I really should go upstream until I find the source of the water, but I'd been lugging ten bags of purchases around and have reached my packhorse capacity. I slurp a bit of water out of my cupped palm, prepared for dirt flavor.

It doesn't taste muddy. It tastes better than any water I've ever drunk before. I drink a few more handfuls and march back to my bags, thinking. Clean. Fresh. Sparkling.

My biggest problem will obviously be food. My second biggest problem is the lack of a water container. Without one, my options are limited. At least shelter will be easy. There are plenty of giant oaks.

Both disheartened and reassured by this observation, I grab my possessions and find a tree with low-lying branches. I climb until the branches are as thin as is bearable and hang the bags from some twigs.

I don't want to dwell on what-the-hey-just-_happened,_ but I can't stop myself.

I've read plenty of stories where the main character is transported to another world. In fiction, that typically means time-travel or space-age technology. In derivatives, the main character is usually dropped onto their favorite canon character and things are a lot less believable (and remarkably more convenient). There's some haphazard magic portal and a brief moment of "is this a dream?" and then she pinches herself and decides it's real. I don't have that problem.

I am apparently the only person in the world who can read in dreams. I can taste in dreams, smell in dreams, get hurt in dreams, and sometimes convince myself that they're real. If I fall out of a tree in a dream, I do not _bounce._

As I am twenty feet up in a tree_, _that is not comforting.

The sunlight fades. The night comes. I curl up on my tree branch and wonder what happens next.

* * *

I woke slowly, lulled to my senses by the melodic chattering of birds. _Ooh, birds_, my thoughts mused. _I must have left __the window open_. My eyes drifted lazily open. What was a deer doing in my bedroom?

I jerked upright, managing to strain my back painfully. I was still in the tree. Still wearing my coat. Still not home. There was a flicker of brown as the deer saw me and leaped away. I rolled my eyes, feeling strangely comforted. _That's right, animal lover_, the more cynical side of me commented in flat amusement, _see some wildlife and feel your troubles melt away. Don't hunt for food or anything, either_. Food. Breakfast.

I collected my stuff and climbed down to the ground to play scavenger hunt. I knew I had seen wood sorrel by the stream, and with a little luck I'd find some watercress. Or clover and violets, as it happened.

Every day, I woke up at dawn and foraged until dusk. It wasn't easy—I lost thirty pounds much faster than any diet is supposed to work. Half of that I shouldn't have had in the first place, but if I had not had it, I would have died. Funny how being a bit overweight isn't really a bad thing. What was a bad thing, though, was that I couldn't seem to regain the other fifteen pounds, no matter how many edible plants I remembered and harvested.

Still, I settled in easily enough. I hadn't seen any predators yet, but I slept in the trees as a precaution. When it rained, I slept under my coat. If it was dry, I slept on top of it. I used the crepe for toilet paper (the forest seemed to be fresh out of plants I had been told to trust, like mullein, bigleaf aster, and the darling lifesaver sphagnum moss) and stored my food in the plastic shopping bags.

The best water system I could think of involved drilling holes in the ping pong balls, submerging them, and filling the holes with chewed bubblegum. The process did not seem appealing and I wasn't planning on doing it. Additionally, the bubblegum had been melted by a rainstorm. I was keeping the candy, but I really didn't want to touch it.

I was slowly traveling upstream. Hopefully, I would reach civilization and find out where I was soon. If the weather started dropping, I wouldn't last long. However, the acorns were still developing in the comfort of the oaks—I wasn't too worried.

The last, possibly most important aspect of my new existence was the colors. They started on the fourth morning. With no other intellectual options, I experimented with the colors and heat. The more I pushed down the heat, the less I could feel the delicate swirls of individuality. On the other hand, if I left the heat alone, the range decreased. As did the molten feeling.

The colors were like breathing. Your subconscious controls your lungs, but the second you think of them, that control rests fully on you. You have to figure out how much air to take in—or stop breathing and die. The colors were _useful_, but it's really hard to concentrate on them when you're fifty feet up in a tree, reaching for pinecones on the only pine tree you've yet seen.

And I liked the detail, but it was not worth the pain.

And no, I do not care to explain them in detail when at the time I had no feasible explanation. They made no sense.

Eventually, the neat trick of staring at my own ribs scared me into entering the natural world of kill-or-be-killed, because while I might not have remembered every lesson from my woodsy father, I did know that animals have body fat and that they were the only way I'd keep any on me. I steeled myself for an entire week, and my first "kill" ended up being some lazy bobcat's half-dead leavings.

I was carefully rotating my rabbit on its spit when I first felt the disturbance. It was subtle—the only warning was the squirrels taking to the trees. Well, there was a bit more to it than that.

I was leaning against a rock, lazily humming _The Stars and Stripes Forever _while suppressing the heat (not the fire's heat, just my body's new talent). I was trying to keep an even level, but every time I reached over to rotate my supper, my subconscious took over and the precarious control slipped. So I actually didn't notice the problem until it was too late.

Too late to put out the fire, too late to grab the rabbit, too late to snatch my bags and dash off without a trace. Just enough time to scale a tree and flatten myself against a branch.

I had felt a lump of colorless energy moving toward me. The only colorless energy I knew of was _me_. So whatever was coming wasn't wildlife.

The heat (again, the most _confusing_, powerless, powerful problem—but it seemed to locate life energy) flared sharply, causing me to shove it and my sensing away. I tilted my head to the side and watched a cloaked form walk up to my fire. It was wearing a giant hat, which was distinctly unkind.

The giant hat tipped back as the person under it looked directly up at me. I could see eyes, reflecting in the firelight against the backdrop of the failed sun. "Come down," said a male voice. Human. Male.

And me, a defenseless girl all alone. I shrank back into the leaves. The heat returned with a vengeance.

Below me, the guy sighed. The energy in his top half moved. I pushed the pain back and peeked down again. He'd taken his hat off.

He'd . . .

He was . . .

Itachi Uchiha.

_I am _dead. _I am so dead. I am_— The heat swarmed through me greedily, replacing the panic with pain. The fictional character watched blankly. I glared at him defensively.

If he'd felt like it, I would have been dead a hundred times over already. I rolled off the limb and landed in an easy crouch. Itachi's eyes _followed _me. I scowled (not meaning to annoy him) and stared right back. And stared. And . . . walked closer to turn the spit.

"So, um, hi," I said eventually. _This is awkward and ow burning burning leg I don't appear to be dead yet, entertaining. Ugly hat._

Long silence.

"Would you like some rabbit?" I offered instinctively, hinging on my generous spirit and Mom's sage-like advice to always appeal to men with food. By which I did not mean appeal. "There's more than enough." Which was a lie, actually. The longer the meat lasted, the fewer animals I would have to kill.

He was silent. I turned the rabbit until it seemed done and set it on a clean rock to cool.

"You have strange chakra," said Itachi, and okay, I will finally admit it: he had a moderately distracting voice.

"I don't have any color," I replied unthinkingly, busy slicing (hacking) a leg off of the rabbit.

"Chakra," corrected the ninja.

"Whatever. Rabbit?" He took the leg and sat down across the fire. I hacked enough meat for my own meal and settled against the rock.

A bearable, if not comfortable, silence filled the air, lasting past my "I'm going to find more wood" and up until sunset. Itachi found a tree to lean against. I wrapped myself in my coat and curled up in a maple. "G'night," I mumbled sleepily, accidentally comparing him with one of my brothers.

I woke once to see him feeding the fire from the base of my tree. "Go back to sleep." My eyes blurred complacently.

He was gone by sunrise. Unsurprisingly, my sleepy, apathetic search showed that he was out of range. Well. I tugged the warmth around myself and let the colors flow.

Wait, warmth? Since when could I stand the heat? _Since you learned it was chakra, stupid. Remember, chakra? Source of the fabulously, ridiculously over-powered Naruto ninjas_?

I rifled through my rusty array of memories. Chakra, a life energy that focuses in the stomach and essentially mimics veins. With practice, it can be used to walk on water or blow fireballs. There are several genetic traits and abilities and sub-types as well, such as the Uchiha Sharingan or the Hyūga Byakūgan.

So far as I knew, there was nothing about colors or molten lava, so I was nearly back to square one. Nearly. I had a foothold. I knew where I _was_. And I knew that I really, really did _not _want to travel to a town.

I packed up my things, scooped some dirt over the remains of the fire, and shook myself like a dog. Chakra, eh? I may or may not have laughed giddily and danced around for the entire morning.

Itachi came back three days later, this time from the other direction. He was less obvious—his form was more . . . transparent than a colorless shape ought to be—but I had grown more wary. And also, I was taking a bath. Baths in the middle of nowhere make me very observant.

I jumped when I sensed him coming toward me. The back of my head collided with the rocks of the waterfall I was crouching under. _Ye gods_! I cried, yanking the last few twigs out of my hair. _Why now_?!

My coat was back on in mere seconds, regardless of my soaked state. _Augh_! I thought. _Hidehidehidehidehide_. He was still thirty seconds away. I had time. I could slip into my filthy pants (okay, I hadn't thought through this whole cleaning thing) and avoid the problem of a mid-thigh-length coat.

Or not. "Hello," I muttered, scowling.

"Hnn." His flat eyes took in my soaked skin (mostly my legs, which are uniquely paler than the moon) and hair (the legend of Medusa came to mind).

I blushed like a fire hydrant. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try to sneak up on me." There was no reply, just a bland expression. I blushed even more, my face on fire, and turned to go to my nightly tree.

Itachi followed me like a tangible ghost, sitting beside my stack of firewood while I knelt carefully and sorted through my bag of grazings. I had a few handfuls of wild blueberries, a pile of mint leaves, and a sawed-off branch of sassafras. _Hilarious_.

He was reading a scroll, to all intents and purposes completely at ease. I pulled one of my kunai (I forgot to mention those, but discarded weapons are worse than litter here) out of its sheath and watched him twitch. Still alive, good.

I left the campsite and went back to the waterfall, painfully aware that he was following me. There were deer and bird tracks in the banks of the stream. I sat down beside it and closed my eyes.

The energy was incredibly bright and cheery today. It rippled through the minnows, darted through the squirrels, possessed the birds. I sorted through them, finally settling on a quivering shape that I took to be a rabbit. I liked rabbit. It was easy to clean and simple to cook.

I focused on the pretty mixture of green and blue and stirred gently. When the color changed, I dipped a mental finger in it and tugged carefully.

My stomach churned when it hopped into sight a minute later, a fuzzy brown thing. I could practically smell Itachi frowning at us.

Well, see what I cared.

I hooked more fingers into the animal, leading it within grabbing range. "Sorry," I whispered to it sadly. The color flooded away as I slit its throat. I picked it up and set it on a rock to bleed out.

"Wanna skin it?" I asked the air.

No answer.

"Fine. Then could you go light the fire?" I took it as a yes, because his chakra headed off in that direction. Pity. Although I could finally remove my clothes from the bushes.

It was when we were eating the hot, juicy meat that I made my move. "So, um, I'm not dead." He raised an eyebrow. "I was wondering why?"

"Hnn," said Itachi, and I was about to huff and stalk off to my tree when he continued. "You have an odd chakra presence." I cocked my head and waited. "Thank you for the meal. Good night."

I narrowed my eyes at him, letting him know I wasn't satisfied or pleased. "Night."

He tried to sneak off an hour before dawn, but I forced myself awake. "Where are you going?"

He picked up his hat. "That's none of your concern."

"All right, when will you be back?" He put the hat on and walked into the woods.

Oh, no. I was _through_ with playing the patient, nonabrasive girl. I pulled at the heat, grabbed his chakra, and yanked.

He tripped.

And then he was right in front of me, holding a kunai to my throat. "Don't do that again." I froze. But not for the obvious reason. The colors were gone.

I stared into his eyes (he seemed a bit angry) in disbelief. "What did you _do_? Where are they?"

He withdrew the knife and stepped back. "Where are what?"

"The colors! I can't feel them."

"Hnn," he frowned. "I didn't do anything." This time, I didn't stop him leaving. I couldn't feel him, anyway.

* * *

_**I didn't promise not to write cliches, but we'll steer largely clear of them, I promise you that. The visible plot will come, shortly. Until then: Who's your **_**_favorite anime character, and why?_**

**_Until next time: _**I leaned forward, wrinkling my nose elaborately. "Did you get hit by a cheese grater?"


	2. Chapter 2

It took a week for me to recover. A very long week, because it turns out my color-sensing feels like pins and needles when it's coming back. It did, however, come back stronger. There was a new, pretty shade of indigo and the range was better. (Again, the only thing I knew was that I had grown a 3-D view of the world—a sixth sense, if you will. I could feel the chakra of the animals around me in vivid colors. However, the "radar" came equipped with a burning sensation.)

I also began to notice little blips in the radar: flashes of colorless chakra dashing through the woods. The world had grown to accommodate my ablities. Accordingly, I perfected the unconscious degree control and started practicing pushing back the heat without affecting the colors.

Itachi resurfaced eventually, showing up in the pale dawn to scare the life out of me when I drifted awake. He was sporting a wad of bandages on his forearm and a black eye. Once the shock faded, I was amused.

"How'd ya get those?"

He looked up from unwrapping his arm to where I stood over him, face twisted to suppress a smile. "Good morning."

I grinned and plopped down, cross-legged. "Is it jagged or a clean cut? I couldn't see from the tree."

He gave me a flat stare and peeled back the bandage to reveal an ugly, bleeding wound. I leaned forward, wrinkling my nose elaborately. "Did you get hit by a cheese grater?"

He blinked. I smirked. "I know where a patch of purslane is, if you want. It's—"

"Not going to help with a chakra-inflicted wound."

Oh. Huh. "Fine. I'll go catch some fish or something." I paused mid-thought. "Actually, I might offer to help you wrap that up again."

I did, too. He didn't protest the extra set of hands (vocally), so I learned how to wrap a bandage and that some people have amazing pain tolerance. When we finished, I dove toward the ol' stream without a word. Itachi probably thought I was heading off to throw up. Well, I wasn't. I was going to scrub the blood out of the old wrappings and catch breakfast.

I had seen plenty of deaths and horrible wounds on our farm over the years. The blood didn't bother me. Imagining other's pain was the only thing that did.

I put the cloth in the water, dropped a rock on it, and set out upstream to a bend where the water was a few feet deep. Fish were tricky to reel in, yet absurdly easy to catch. I caught a bunch and strung them out on a reed to wait.

After some bashing and rubbing, the strips of bandages were mostly clean and I'd worked up an appetite. I snatched the fish and trotted back to base.

The fire had been stoked and fed. I blinked. "Thanks." A few minutes later, the fish were filleted and propped against the fire like so many marshmallows. I sighed. "Look, I . . . I'm really sorry that I did that to you last time. I, uh . . . I'll try not to do it again. Sorry."

We sat for a while in comfortable silence. Until, of course, my stomach growled and I accidentally set one of the fillets on fire. The amusement radiated off Itachi in waves. "Fine, then," I huffed. "You cook the food and I'll go trip onto a sword and act all mysterious, shall I?"

He reached for one of the fishmallows. "My name is Itachi."

Perplexingly enough, I blushed. "I'm Amy. Nice to meet you." For the first time since I'd met him, I relaxed. "Is your arm the only chakra-inflicted injury?" I asked curiously.

"Yes," he said.

"I thought so. It hurts."

"I have had worse."

I shook my head at him. "I meant that it hurts me. Why do you think I ran off?"

Itachi put his partially-eaten fishmallow down very slowly and deliberately. "Kindly explain your chakra abilities," he commanded. "Now."

I told him about the colors and the life in them. I described the way I could control the animals. And then, haltingly, whispering, I told him about the heat.

"Hnn."

"Isn't chakra supposed to be painless? I mean, even the red in your arm makes me nauseated. How am I supposed to—"

"Hush, Ami-chan."

It was a good thing that he was staring into the fire, because that last syllable made my jaw drop. We were speaking English, not Japanese! Right?

I finished my half of breakfast while Itachi watched the fire die. _Oh, sure, go ahead and take your time. It's not like one of us has stuff to do_.

"It sounds as if your chakra is very similar to nature chakra. The pain is likely your body's way of adjusting to the development. You have a very powerful bloodline limit."

"Yeah, seeing rainbows is a pretty powerful trait," I groused.

"Seeing nature chakra," Itachi corrected. "And being able to sense spiritual chakra. Any ninja village would want you on their side." How cheery.

"Well, they can want all they like. I don't plan on being a weapon."

"Hnn." I was really starting to hate that sound.

* * *

I couldn't help but watch as he pulled a bunch of kunai out of a pocket for sharpening. His left hand was struggling to hold the whetstone. I rubbed my own arm reflexively. I ought to have gone scouting for berries, or caught more fish and tried smoking them. Something about that wound was rubbing me the wrong way.

"Do you think the blips are ninja?"

"What blips?"

I pointed east. "There are two over that way. I can still feel them, so I guess they're walking."

Itachi shut his eyes for a moment, frowning. "I can't feel anything."

Huh. I guess my range was better than I'd thought. "Can you feel me?"

"It would be hard not to." Oof, now that was a blow to the ego. I tamped down on the heat, feeling my connection to the two distant people and quite a few animals fade. Itachi's chakra sharpened into four recognizable limbs, one of which was pulsing red. "Impossible not to."

With a bit more concentration, I blocked out the colors and Itachi's form. "Better."

"Weird." And worrying. "Your arm feels worse. Can you still move your fingers?"

"You can still sense the chakra?"

I smiled at him. "So long as I'm breathing. You're avoiding my question, so thank you for answering it." I smiled like a _shark_ and let the colors return, zeroing in on his arm.

It felt like someone had slapped on a chunk of red and ground it in. So a glob of red was stuck in his arm and jamming his system. I gave the red a tiny, cautious prod. Itachi stiffened. "Stop that."

He hadn't winced, at least. I shrugged and zoomed out. "Sorry. I'll, um, uh. . . ." Do what, exactly? I wanted to fix him.

Itachi tossed me his whetstone.

No kidding. Here was someone encouraging me to play with sharp objects.

"Your kunai are dull." I'd only ever had one out, so I didn't see how he could— "_My_ stuff," I complained childishly. "Criminal."

"You're holding that wrong," was his reply.

"Yeah, I'm gonna cut myself on a rock, Itachi-_sensei_."

"Hnn." Liar.

"Don't you laugh at me!"

"I'm not."

"Liar! Ow!"

"Hnn." If that wasn't laughing, I was a frog.

* * *

"Hey, um, is your arm any better?"

Flat look. Translation: no.

"Is it worse?"

Flat look. Translation: yes.

"Did I make it worse?"

"I doubt it." Hey! Where'd the look go?

"Guess what I'm about to suggest."

"No." Translation: I did. Shut up.

* * *

"Seeing as you're just going to enjoy my hospitality, you could let me try."

He tossed a folded leaf at me. A rice ball. Supper.

"The restaurant thanks you for the tip."

* * *

It was early evening when I snapped. "Look. I don't know what that arm feels like to you, but I can't stop feeling it and it's not pleasant. So either you leave or you let me try to fix it or you kill me out of pity."

"Hnn."

Were those tears in my eyes? "On a scale of one to ten, this is a twelve, Itachi!" Whoops. Oops. Um. "San. Sensei. Something."

To my complete surprise, Itachi did not turn on his Sharingan. He simply looked at me. "You are upset."

I wiped away the frustrated tears and sighed. "I can't turn it off," I wanted to say. "Please," I wanted to beg, "I just want it to stop."

Itachi reached wordlessly for the bandage and began to unwrap it. Shocked, I opened up my least favorite sensation to magnify the less-than-pleasant one in his arm. I zoomed in as slowly and steadily as I could.

The world receded to a heartbeat and a song.

Red and red.

Warmth and cold.

* * *

The next morning came with all the gentle force of a blunted pickax. _My head . . . crave aspirin . . . ha. Wait_. My eyes snapped open.

I was on the ground. My coat was tangled around my legs. The blood from—

"Itachi?" My hands were coated from when I'd put them on his arm. "Hello?" The colors were gone again. "Great." What had happened, exactly? Why was it morning?

I had lost myself for a while—hours, most likely—in the mixture of red and colorless chakra that was Itachi's arm. The red had established. So I had figured out a way to pull it into the air.

Which required direct contact and extreme concentration and using my fingers as conductors and was basically a headache to think about at all.

When I'd finished, we'd eaten supper with a lot less enthusiasm than . . . right. And then I'd collapsed (not on his shoulder, thankfully) and he'd dropped my coat on me. And then presumably left before the sun came up.

There was a small stack of folded leaves lying beside the dying fire. I crawled over to it and opened one. Rice balls. Underneath the food was a leather bag.

Well, good. A water skin might be a fair exchange for the departed colors. If my hunch were right, I deserved more than a water skin. That stuff had been spreading. Its edges had faded to pink and . . . no, I didn't want to think about it.

I didn't want to remember the way Itachi had tensed (shuddered) as I had pulled both his and the foreign chakra out of his system.

I wanted to cry.

* * *

"Ami-chan."

I stripped the bush of its last few berries and tucked them into my sash. "Hi." Unfolding my pocketknife, I started hacking off a long strip of bark.

"You need to suppress your chakra immediately."

"Why should I listen to you?" I smiled, reaching for another branch.

A hand landed on my shoulder and my heart leapt into my throat and died a sudden death. "You're not—" I ducked out of the grip and threw myself away.

Funny, because he sounded and looked just like Itachi.

"I am a clone," the look-alike stated. Oh. No wonder. . . .

"Is that why your chakra feels fake?" I asked.

"My chakra is not—" He paused and looked at me. "Itachi and an acquaintance are coming this way. If you do not hide your chakra presence immediately the consequences will be severe."

"Acquaintance? Who?"

"A shinobi who absorbs abnormal chakra as a hobby," said the Itachi, confirming my fear.

I stamped down on my chakra _viciously_.

The Itachi nodded and disappeared in a dramatic puff of smoke.

_I am so dead. At least Itachi went rogue to protect someone. Kisame's got a pet sword that eats people_!

Well, the least I could do would be find a tree. Except, didn't ninja travel through the treetops? I should be fine on the ground, then. Except . . . bother.

_Okay. I'll hide in a tree. If they come by on the ground, I'll be safe. If they come through the trees, I'll be hidden. If they don't come close at all, I'll spend the night in it_.

I must have the worst luck in the world, because they camped twenty feet away. Seriously. Itachi and his friend the shark just waltzed up and hunkered down.

_His clone tracked me_, I realized. _But he could have had it kill me or simply used it to avoid me_.

The sky grew dark at an abysmally slow pace. I curled into a ball and eavesdropped on the Akatsuki.

Something, something . . . finally killed that guy . . . annoying jōnin . . . Itachi volunteered for first watch.

"He's asleep."

I stiffened and looked around for Itachi, who was crouching on the branch beside me. Unfair. "Why'd you come?" I whispered back. "You'd better not be hurt."

"Hnn," said Itachi in a possibly-slightly-amused way. "Follow me." He dropped to the ground and walked toward the campsite. I slithered hesitantly down the trunk and tiptoed after. "He is asleep. I placed him in a genjutsu."

I stared cautiously at the body lying by the fire. "So can I let the colors back?"

"Yes."

The colors flooded into me noisily, erasing the dull ache of separation. I staggered. "'Tachi!"

His dark eyes flickered in the firelight as he met my gaze. "You—he—"

Itachi had a small streak of red on him somewhere, but Kisame's back was swarming with the stuff. "I want you to heal him," Itachi stated.

I swallowed. One of Itachi's hands was bandaged. His arm was untainted. "Let me fix your hand first."

"So that you can faint?"

My cheeks flamed. "Shut up! I can handle a stupid scratch. And if I _do_ faint, then I'm gonna make sure that you're around to stop him from killing me."

"You think he would kill you?"

_Why, yes. Kisame of the Akatsuki, S-ranked criminal, will kill me on sight. I know this because of course I know all, Uchiha_. "My apologies if your clone sent itself."

He gave me his hand and I unwrapped the bandage. "Magic meat grater strikes again?" The back of his hand was skinned. I flicked the red into the air and watched it disperse.

"Okay, now what?"

Itachi walked over to his partner and pulled off the cloak. Sharkface's torso was a plethora of bandages. Itachi knelt beside him, sliced the cloth, and peeled it back.

Whoa.

"I've had worse," I announced (lied) cheerily, and added, "If he wakes up, I'm going to kill you."

"He will not," said Itachi. For some reason, the nerves in my stomach relaxed.

I put my left hand squarely on the bloody mess that was Kisame's back and let the red flow through it. From there, I used my right hand to pull the chakra into the air. Sort of like sewing.

My own back was aching by the time I finished. I wiped my bloodied hands on my pants and stood up. "'Kay, it's all out." I yawned and watched as Itachi started covering the wound again. "D'ya think his skin would have turned purple, with the blue and red?" I yawned a second time and arched my spine, oddly aware that my perception was falling away. "Can you even see the colors, Itachi-san?"

"No," said Itachi. "You should leave now."

I had stopped scavenging to hide in a tree for hours. I had spent who-knows-how-long digging evil chakra out of a criminal's back. I glared. "Think again, genius. I'm tired and I was here first."

"Hnn."

"Don't you 'hnn' me," I snarled. "I'm gonna lose the colors because I saved your sorry hide. So you listen and listen good, mister. I don't take orders. I don't care if I wake up dead, I'm going to sleep and that's _final_."

"Of course it is," agreed Itachi as he nonchalantly made a shadow clone. I hissed angrily.

"Next time, warn me! Don't make me hide myself and then just park right next to me! And don't use some underhanded tactic on me, either!"

"Hnn." I glared at him, feeling the clone circle around behind me. I growled and twitched at its chakra with the last of my ability. Itachi's eyes flashed red. Sharingan.

I blinked, trying to gather the colors. The colors had left. _I'm falling_. . . . I was asleep before the word came to mind, but the description was apt enough. I had taken out the clone.

I fell.

* * *

**_We might discover the plot, eventually. Although if it's the canon plot, I'm afraid I have read too many fics to write it out word-for-word. Gross. We've all watched too many filler scenes . . . again and again. Question: fireflies, lightning bugs, glow worms, hotaru, or something else? What do you call them?_**

**_Answer to last chapter's question: Possibly Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. I like many different people for different reasons. Alphonse likes cats. I do, too._**

**_Daydreamer1008: Thank you! I suspect that Itachi is one of the few characters I can write easily. I hope you will tell me if I mess him (or any other character) up._**

**_Poppy Grave Dreams: I'm glad you like it. I'll do my best to keep it believable and interesting, but I recognize that I'm not a magical author. I work hard, especially for humor. (Vibrant personalities are addictive.)_**

_**ANNAinDreamland: There will absolutely never under any circumstances be any of those over-used, trite turn-of-phrases. The heat/color/chakra is an issue to the plot, and sadly, I have not done a good job of explaining it. Basically (and hear me out—it's not a "godmodding" power), take the Sharingan's ability to see the color of chakra, and the Byakugan's ability to see 3-D. Then imagine seeing **_**only_ chakra in 3-D. Because it's seeing only chakra, she doesn't consider it to be part of her vision. The "heat" is her body's way of fighting/controlling the ability. (And there's more to it than that—such as Itachi's opinion—and how people are "colorless.") To an extent, she can "pull" the chakra around. However. Did I say anything about normal chakra, or jutsus? No, I did not. But I do not write Mary-Sues._**

**_Until next time: _**"You're leaving footprints," Itachi said eventually.

"Of course I leave footprints," I retorted.


End file.
